evil. But, notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances, the love of her child, separating as it does his existence from his character, never ceases to act, ―never falters and becomes weary. She loves, by an element or law of her nature, just as God does; and can cease to love only when she ceases to live. She clothes him and feeds him, for which she receives no thanks; she bathes his throbbing brow, feverish with criminal intemperance; she returns kindness for unkindness, care for forgetfulness; never ceasing, under any circumstances, to watch, to pray, and to labor.

Deeply affected by what is thus presented to their notice, men concede at once and universally the amiableness and the attractive character of this high love;a love above philosophy and mere human reason, and partaking of the nature of God.

3. Take the case of the wife. become profane, intemperate, vicious. changed to suspicion and hatred.

Her husband has

His kindness is He is the wreck of

what he was once; and yet her love, kindled by the knowledge of what he has been, and of what he may yet be, remains unchanged. If his character is gone, his existence remains. If virtue has departed, immortality never dies. She sees his former life in ruins, but still it is a living ruin and capable of reänimation. And while there is hope, however feeble, she will not cease to call upon him to return.

It is needless to say, how much we respect and honor an affection so exalted, and how constantly and strongly it impresses us with a sense of its divine origin. We can see a reason why she should love that which is lovely; but to love that which is unlovely; to separate between existence and character, and to attach our affections to the mere reality of being, simply because it is

being; and, whatever may be its relations of harmony or of opposition to us or to others, to seek, to pray, and to labor for its redemption to purity and to happiness, simply because it is susceptible of such redemption, and without thought of personal reward; this is a love, of which reason, in being unable to explain it, can only say, it is of God.

4. Take the case of those individuals who have visited, aided, and blessed the enslaved and the prisoner, -the Clarksons and Howards of their generation; men who have travelled and labored, in the language of Mr. Burke, when speaking of Howard, "not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; nor to collect medals or collate manuscripts; -but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and the dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries."

5. It is such cases, unexplainable on mere prudential considerations, which give us a glimpse of the exalted and divine nature of that love which flows out to existence. He, who has such love, has God,-God is in him; because such love cannot live unless it strikes its root and has its source of life in the Infinite. As it casts out alike all selfish interests and all fears, nothing but divine power in the soul could support it.

With such views of pure or holy love, it only remains to be added here, that it is right and reasonable that we should be required to love our enemies. There are no

passages of Scripture which have perplexed the unbelieving world more than those which have relation to this subject. "But I say unto you," says the Saviour, "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."

-

6. It will be noticed, that we are not commanded to love their enmity, to love their detractions and ill usage, but to love that which has enmity; the subject rather than the attribute; namely, their existence, their immortal natures. In the exercise of holy love, we may not only forgive them, but may earnestly seek their happiness; while, at the same time, we condemn their characters. Their characters may change, but not the essence of their being. Their enmity may die, but their nature is eternal.

7. We repeat, however, that this love cannot be ex-
ercised in its full extent, unless the soul has first passed
into divine unity and become a partaker of the divine
nature. It was this love, resting upon the principle of
faith, which constituted Christ the true Son of God.
And it is this love, resting upon the same principle of
faith, which constitutes the sons of God in all times and
all places. "Love your enemies," says the Saviour."
And what is the reason which he assigns?
"That ye

may
be the children of your Father which is in heaven,
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have
ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye
salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?
Do not even the publicans so? Be ye, therefore, perfect,
even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect."

How men can be ever cease to love the
wisted and desiater of mos

in that whom it to come &

CHAPTER IV.

THOUGHTS ON THE CREATION OF HOLY EXISTENCES.

All holy beings formed in the divine image. - The divine image in man constituted chiefly by holy love. Such love necessarily the gift of God. On loving God with the whole heart. Remarks.

WHAT has been said is perhaps all that is necessary to be said in relation to the nature of love, and the existence of love as a central element of the Divine Mind. Man must be born again into the possession of this love, and thus be restored to, and reässociated with, the divine element. And we shall the better understand the necessity of this regeneration and reünion, by considering still further what man was in the beginning. And our first remark is this.

All holy beings, inasmuch as they come from God, are, and must be, formed originally in the divine image. It is thus that angels and all angelic and seraphic natures are formed. They are miniatures of God. It is thus that man himself was originally formed. And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him."

2. The likeness of God to man is not in form, for God is without form;-not in intellect, for the intellect of God embraces all things, while man can know only a part; but in that which constitutes, more than anything else, the element, the life, of the divine nature,

namely, HOLY LOVE. Man, in the infancy of his existence, was created a love being. Love, as the centre of his existence, was not a speculation, but a nature; not an accessory of life, but the life itself. Spontaneous in its action, acting because it had a principle of movement in itself, it did not wait for the slow deductions of reason, but flowed out in all directions, like a living stream. As man, thus formed in the love spirit, looked around upon the works of nature, he saw all things in the possession of life and beauty, and he rejoiced in all things, because all things had God in them. He loved the tree and the flower, which reflected the divine wisdom and goodness. But far more did he delight in the happiness of everything which had a sentient existence. He called all animals to him. The birds dropped their wings at the sound of his voice, and came. The beasts of the field and of the forests flocked around him from their near or distant habitations. He loved them; and he gave them their names. When the occasion was presented, when the sentient object, no matter to what scale or degree of sentient being it belonged, was before him, his simple and pure heart flowed out at once.

3. It was thus, beyond all question, that the primitive man was constituted. Such is the representation of Scripture. Love, resting upon faith, was his nature. And, coming from God, he could not have been constituted otherwise. God being what he is, he could not have created man otherwise than he did. The principles of right, which apply to the fact of creation as well as to the government of things created, are not susceptible of change. It is impossible, therefore, to conceive of more than one pattern or model, according to which holy beings were at first created. And this one pattern, which, in being the true pattern, condemns and excludes